Piquets to sue Briatore

Former F1 driver Nelson Piquet and his father of the same name have launched a libel court action against Flavio Briatore.

The Daily Mail newspaper is reporting that the pair are seeking £200,000 in compensation through the High Court in London.

The suit centres around the Singapore race-fixing scandal, during which Piquet deliberately crashed. He then revealed his actions a year later, after he had been fired for his lack of performance.

The Piquets claim rests on a a press release issued by Renault which accused the them of giving false evidence to the FIA and blackmailing the team. It added that Briatore would pursue Piquet criminally in France and Britain.

Renault, who ousted Briatore when it was clear that Piquet's accusations were not false, withdrew the legal threats but did not apologise.

"Given Renault F1's failure to accept the Piquets' invitation to withdraw the allegations and apologise, they feel they have no other choice but to demonstrate the falsity of these allegations in court," said the Piquets' lawyer Dominic Crossley.

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Given that Alonso was widely regarded as running the team I'd like to know how much did he really know about the plan? I simply don't believe that he was completely unaware. Especially as his fuel load wasn't just low, it was exceptionally low.

As for the case, this is really just mud slinging and our courts have better things to be doing that this.